/*
 * Copyright (c) 2010 Google Inc.
 * 
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not
 * use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of
 * the License at
 * 
 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 * 
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
 * WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
 * License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under
 * the License.
 */

package com.google.api.client.http;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStream;

/** Serializes content into an output stream. */
public interface HttpSerializer {

  /** Returns the content length or less than zero if not known. */
  long getContentLength();

  /**
   * Returns the content encoding (for example {@code "gzip"}) or {@code null}
   * for none.
   */
  String getContentEncoding();

  /** Returns the content type. */
  String getContentType();

  /** Writes the content to the given output stream. */
  void writeTo(OutputStream out) throws IOException;
}
